My faith is a lot like Peter walking on water. He had faith that Jesus could make all things happen, and then as soon as it got scary, Peter started to sink. He turned his focus from God to his fear. For a short time Peter was 100% faithful – and a miracle was happening – and one hard/scary part of the water took his 100% faithfulness to 0%.
The disappointments in myself are where my real fears are. I have little faithfulness and a whole lot of control in fear. Everything is structured with list upon list of to-dos – all because I’m too afraid to fail. I put all my trust in myself and don’t trust myself at all… I believe in God, that’s easy to say, but I live my life in a way that does not demonstrate my faithfulness in his plans or timing. Its like I think the things I do are the most important….
Fear of failure, acceptance, or any other fear has me not living faithfully – it has me living fearfully. Living fearfully road blocks what God has in store for me, roadblocks my happiness, joy, love – It’s like a boot on my car – I’m stuck and only God is the key! He doesn’t want us living in fear – it says “do not be afraid” 365 times in bible – enough to remind us each day of the year! So how can I/we stop living with our scares and start living with our faith and trust?
Faithfulness
It’s easy to believe in God, but it takes faithfulness to actually believe His teachings enough to change our lives. Faithfulness is believing in what the bible says about God, His Existence, His works and His Character 100% always, especially when it’s tough. Our eyes in the midst of struggle only see the bad and so quickly we sink into the fear and lose our faith. We need to strengthen our faithfulness to conquer our fears and be able to follow through on the work that God wants to use us for.
God has a plan for our life, but if we’re stuck in fear we are missing out on our reward, it’s waiting for us to have Faith and ‘walk on water’ with Him. God has always proven his faithfulness – everywhere in the bible you can see that he ALWAYS follows through on what He says – we have no reason not to trust him to carry us through any challenge, so how can we build our faithfulness and trust?
“But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things He has done for you” – 1 Samuel 12:24
How to Increase Your Faith
- Read your bible – Romans 10:17 says So then, faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God. Reading or hearing God’s word is like planting seeds. With every planted seed of God’s word we are able to harvest them over and over to conquer our fears and insecurities.
- Exercise your faith – A marathon runner doesn’t go out and run 26.2 miles the first day. They exercise daily, gradually increasing their strength and distance. As we learn more about God’s way of living our lives we can exercise our faith in our daily actions to grow and strengthen our spirituality and faithfulness.
- Be Aware of challenges and where your eyes turn – Don’t stay in your fear and be blinded by it. Keep your eyes on the promises of God and trust that he will carry you through even the toughest trial. He is faithful – ALWAYS!
- Pray – Pray, talk with God – He is listening and is at work in your life.
- Watch for Him – He’s everywhere and showing His faithfulness – you need only be aware and present with Him. Sometimes with small glimmers of hope and sometimes with mind blowing specific prayer answering. (but even if he doesn’t answer right away – He heard you, He either has something better or the timing isn’t right- He knows best – not us! )
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful – Hebrews 10:23
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